Screen redraw issue after Windows 10 Creators update

I have a strange problem. Before the Windows 10 Creators update, TaxCycle was working fine. After the update, I only see an outline of the window. If I resize the window,I can see the program, but anything I click or type won’t be visible until I resize again. I’ve rebooted Windows, uninstalled/rebooted/reinstalled TaxCycle from fresh download, and reinstalled .net framework 4.7.

Any other ideas?

Did your display drivers get updated when you updated windows?

I had a bad display driver update in March that showed these exact symptoms. I would try re-installing a known good display driver.

~ Cameron

I don’t think it was updated during the Windows 10 update, but I did try
auto-updating it, rolling it back, and then manually updating with a known
good driver from Dell. I’ve tried many of my other programs and the only
one that has a similar problem is PDF Split and Merge, which is a Java
based program. Does that help narrow down a possible cause? I haven’t
used Split and Merge for months, so it’s possible it wasn’t working before
the update, but I thought I’d throw it out there.

Actually, that was the display adapter drivers I was referring to … not the actual display drivers. I’ll try that later this evening. I had ruled that out since both my laptop and external display had the same issue. I suppose the could both be buggy.

Strange. When I got back to my computer this evening, TaxCycle (and that other program) are working properly. When I checked the event logs, I found the Windows was busily working away “reconfiguring” various applications, including TaxCycle. My conclusion is that perhaps the Windows 10 update needed to complete some housekeeping after installation of the Creators Update, which required my computer to be idle. Despite completing the update yesterday, this evening would have been the first time it was on and idle.

So, for anyone experiencing the same issue:

  1. Make sure that your display adapter driver is up to date (preferably from the manufacturer of your computer) as Cameron indicated, and
  2. Make sure you allow enough time with the computer idle for Windows to clean up the update.

I’m not sure which of the above actually solved my issue, but it’s solve nonetheless.

Further to the above noted issue, I have been able to replicate the issue, and have found that in my case, the problem relates to the latest Intel HD Graphics 510 driver issued by Dell (version 21.20.16.4590). The previous driver (version 20.19.15.4531) works fine. If anyone else if having similar issues, you may want to determine if you have the newer driver.

For the folks at TaxCycle, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need more information to look into this. The affected computer is a fairly new Dell Inspiron 5559 with the Intel HD Graphics 510 graphics adapter.

Bumping this thread, hoping that we might be able to find a resolution. I’m now up to the third display driver update and the problem still occurs. For clarity, here are the driver versions that aren’t compatible with TaxCycle.

21.20.16.4590
22.20.16.4771
22.20.16.4836

Unfortunately, between Dell and Windows, there’s not much I can do to prevent the updates. This means that I keep having to revert to the old driver. Given that I don’t experience such issues with other programs, is there something we can look at within TaxCycle? Is there some “redraw screen” function that is calling a deprecated method or something (I’m not a programmer, but recall some of the terminology from some computer science courses back in university).

Given that I can replicate it every time, I’d be happy to assist with the troubleshooting.

In the meantime, now I’m heading off to roll back the video driver again.

Thanks,

Rob

nvidia graphics card? I’m running 23.something and no problems.

Intel 7820x / MSI motherboard / 32GB DDR4 2400 / NVIDIA 950GTX

I think it’s just Intel graphics (built in). The specs show:
Intel® HD Graphics 520

do you have a discrete video card to test?

No … it’s a “built in” card.

No, i was asking if you had a seperate video card to test…

I do not have a separate (discrete) video card to test. The video card is “built in” to my motherboard.

Try updating to dotNet framework version 4.7.2 which you can download here: https://www.microsoft.com/net/download/dotnet-framework-runtime

This update to the framework allegedly fixes rendering issues for WPF apps.

Let us know if this does it.

Thanks Cameron. I’ll try that now and will report back.

I have updated to .NET Framework 4.7.2, updated my video driver to 22.20.16.4836 and still no dice. Any other suggestions? Meanwhile, I’ll roll back my video driver. :slight_smile:

Hey Cameron,

I’ve found a workaround that doesn’t require rolling back and preventing graphics driver updates, which has been causing havoc in other ways. I’m hoping that the workaround helps identify what might be causing this.

After hours (probably days now) of searching, and experimenting, I’ve narrowed it down to hardware acceleration. If it’s enabled while Tax Cycle loads, the screen won’t render correctly as described above when running any version of the driver after 20.19.15.4531 is installed. However, at least with the latest driver (23.20.16.4973), TaxCycle runs correctly as long as hardware acceleration is disabled. Perhaps there’s an easier way (at least I hope there would be), but I’m disabling hardware acceleration by adding a DWORD named DisableHWAcceleration to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Avalon.Graphics] and setting the value to 1.

Obviously tweaking the registry is not for the faint of heart and shouldn’t be required, but it’s a fast and easy fix for me.

Does this help narrow down what might be causing the issue?

That’s interesting, and it means that the problem is outside of anything that we can fix.

There is an easier way to get TaxCycle to work without the registry key, though… You could edit the TaxCycle shortcut, like this:

This should achieve the same result…

Best regards,

~ Cameron

What does the “/SWR” switch do? I see that it’s “optimized for remote access”, but what does that change that allows it to work. Does it only turn off hardware acceleration? I tested and it works, but I’m hoping you can shed some light on what it does, in hopes that it may help solve this issue on my system. That said, I think I’ll be rebuilding my laptop after things settle down a bit, and will try a fresh Windows + TaxCycle only install to see if the problem remains. If it doesn’t, I’ll test after each application is installed and post my findings here. It’s frustrating that it really only seems to affect TaxCyle (and that rarely used Java program I referred to above).

Thanks for your assistance in this!

/SWR stands for “SoftWare Rendering”, which basically turns off hardware acceleration. Usually this is helpful for remote access, but it can be helpful in other circumstances as well…

The reason that your other apps are working is that they are not using the hardware acceleration that TaxCycle takes advantage off…